reticentia

Forms

reticentia f (genitive reticentiae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin reticēns (“keeping silent”) + -ia, from the participle of reticeō (“to keep silent”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan lists both among the derivatives of taceō (“to be silent”), which he traces to Proto-Italic *tak-ē- (“to be silent”) and Proto-Indo-European *tHk-eh₁- (“to be silent”).^[4] Cognate with Umbrian tases (“silent”), Old Norse þegja and Old High German thagēn, “to be silent”.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Plautus,^[4][5] in the Mercator: enicas me miserum tua reticentia (“you are killing me with your silence”).^[6][7][8]

Semantic evolution

Pacuvius also has it.^[6][7] Cicero says that neither forgetfulness nor the silence of posterity could bury vestra virtus (“your courage”),^[7][6] and opposes it to speech;^[7] in the De officiis he notes that jurists set a penalty for keeping silent about a defect in a thing sold.^[6][7][8]

In rhetoric it named the figure of breaking off in mid-sentence, aposiopesis, in Cicero's De oratore and in Quintilian,^[6][7][2] and also the device of pretending to pass over the very point one wants to stress.^[2] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means “reticence, silence”.^[9] It survives in Italian reticenza and French réticence.^[1][8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of someone's silence.^[6][4][5]
• 220–130 BC – Pacuvius uses it in a tragedy.^[6][7][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of keeping silent and of the figure aposiopesis.^[6][7][5]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian discusses the figure.^[6][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Silence, keeping silent, avoidance of speech.^[2][6]
2. (law) Keeping silent about what one ought to declare, such as a defect in a thing sold.^[7][6]
3. (rhetoric) Aposiopesis; also paralipsis.^[2][6]

Related words

• Italian reticenza
• French réticence

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
9. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson